“It isn’t always about hard work,” Peppers told NJ Advance Media. “Hard work only gives you a chance to win. It’s about execution. The team who executes the best will win on Sundays, not the team who works the hardest. On this level, everyone works hard. Are you executing when you work hard?"

The experience of a winless season never leaves the mind, even after changing uniforms.

“That digs deep,” Zeitler said. “I don’t ever want to go through something like that again. It’s not good for people’s health. It’s wild, but it is what it is and I’m moving forward. One of the goals I have is to make sure that never happens again.”

Coleman, who first joined the Giants last season, is out for the season with a torn ACL. He dropped a touchdown catch in the 2017 season finale that might have saved the Browns from 0-16, but was expected to be the Giants'’ top kick returner and No. 3 wide receiver in his quest for redemption.

“The past is the past,” Coleman said when he joined the Giants. “I left that behind.”

Peppers and Zeitler arguably are the Giants’ two biggest offseason additions, acquired in separate trades merged into one sending Olivier Vernon and Odell Beckham to the Browns. They are not jealous of the timing of their departure but rather happy from afar for the possible continued change of fortunes for old friends.

The irony is the Giants are turning to two players from one of the all-time losingest NFL teams to restore a winning culture in their locker room.

“It’s an indescribable feeling,” Zeitler said of losing all 16 games. “I’ll always say that was the hardest we ever worked. We worked and we worked and we worked. We worked our butts off. Obviously nothing went our way and every possibility happened.”

Both Zeitler and Peppers were new to the Browns in 2017, missing the 1-15 record in 2016. Zeitler signed a five-year, $60 million free-agent contract to leave the Cincinnati Bengals.

But maybe no one experienced a shock to the system like Peppers, a first-round draft pick. Peppers won four NJSIAA sectional titles — two at Don Bosco Preparatory and two at Paramus Catholic — in high school and went 25-13 in three years at Michigan, including a redshirt season.

“It opens your eyes to a lot,” Peppers said. "You can learn from it in terms of seeing what you are doing when you went 0-16 and never doing those things again. When you see it, attack it and cut it out. It was a snowball effect of a lot of things.”

"One missed assignment is the difference between a win and a loss. One time you don’t sprint to the ball and the guy breaks loose, and you could’ve been there. Things like that make you buy-in and believe philosophies.”